Siblings. The people you watch crawl, say their first words and take their first steps like a kamikaze plane. Our family is your typical catholic family. We all know each other’s business and we tend to get up in each other’s grilles more than we should.
Being the oldest, the responsibility was automatically handed to me. Although my immediate family has been through a lot together in the last ten years, I am proud to say that I am proud of how the younings’ have turned out. Being me, with general sense of style that isn’t exactly couture, I always worried I would have a bad influence on them and that they would end up where they shouldn't.
My sister, now nearly twenty was 15 when I lost my virginity to my tattoo artist – this is the type of worry I am talking about.
Fortunately, my mother had some positive and stern influence in this whole equation and she brought the three of us up to have independence, to not take shit from anyone and to not rely on the opposite sex to get anywhere in nowaday’s world. I suppose this explains why my sister and I are still single, while we find men pathetic and even the smell of someone ‘cramping our styles’ we tend to run, run like Forest Gump.
I do have to mention my step father too. Before he came along, we were a household of angry and confused females, with my brother thrown in somewhere randomly.
Pete taught my sister and I, that if a man is truly and honestly interested, he will make it known. Don’t run after men, let them run after you. Make them work for it and if they do, make them happy when it comes to getting serious. Don’t take shit from men either. Men only need four things: Sex, food, booze and sport. Don’t take that away from them.
I can’t even remember how many times we have all sat in the kitchen, either of us with a male dilemma and my step father adding his honest opinion and valuable advice. If it wasn’t for him and my mother (who tends to say “F*ck him, he’s not worth it” more often than she should), my sister and I wouldn’t have the self- preservation attitude we have today and we would probably still be with the losers we left behind at the bus stop, ages ago).
I’m going off track here though. Siblings. My sister, who is my best friend moved away to Grahamstown in February this year. Completely out of her comfort zone, she spontaneously went with what felt right and packed her bags to move 14 hours away. My brother, out of hand at the time and on the verge of a pubescent-delinquent eruption was sent to boarding school in the same town, as well. The only option left, my parents hoped would work.
Being the leader of the Wright clan, it was extremely tough for me to adjust to my sister AND my brother up and leaving. I was used to bitching at Jordan for leaving his boxers all over the stairs and I was extremely comfortable with being my sister’s moral support, the person she came to at 2am in the morning, sobbing over some asshole. I felt empty when they both left, the upstairs we shared was too quiet and the space was too unused.
I also had the fear of me not being around to protect them, like I have my whole life. Yes, we’ve had tearful skype sessions and phone calls, but it’s never the same. What if something happened to them and I couldn’t drop everything to run and put a plaster on it? What if an asshole screws my sister over and I can’t be there to bust a cap in his ass? This was the point where I new I now had to let go. We were no longer 10, 7 and 4. We had grown up and they needed to experience life, I wasn’t meant to be a part of it, as tough as that thought was, to let go.
It took both of them to settle for a while, as I have said, tearful phone calls, pleas for bus tickets to return home and the odd visit from the parents. After visiting my sister on her turf for a week, I have realised that where she is, is where she is meant to be.
I have never seen my sister so happy before. She has found her ‘home’ away from home and she shines, like a neon light in a pitch black room. She has found her calling in the Drama department and she has made the best friends anyone could ask for. I came home, sighing immense relief and feeling as if something had been lifted off of my shoulders; that’s what I needed to see in order to let her grow up without my interference. Just knowing she is ok, she is loving what she is doing and the fact that she has people in her life who appreciate her, is enough for me to let go of her hand and watch her take over the playground by herself. I’ll still sit on the swing, from a distance and monitor. No one can ask me to completely leave just yet.
We happened to experience a bit of turbulence while partying it up in G-Town. Her ex boyfriend, who doesn’t have the mental capacity nor the maturity to just let it go and move on. After watching her deal with his psycho tendencies, stalker ambitions and attempt to burst both of our personal space bubbles, she knows what she’s doing and she can handle herself just in the right way.
Instead of feeding him the negativity and the attention he craves from her, she ignored him and she never let him get to her. I was the one getting worked up, after being shoved into a corner and interrogated about my sister’s every breath she takes. She was the one, who told me to calm down and to just let it go.
We can learn from our younger siblings, like they learn from us. I learnt that I shouldn’t get so dramatic and worked up. Had I the opportunity, I would punched his lights out (which wouldn’t have been difficult). I guess I am too protective and I haven’t let go, like I should. That oke is lucky I was just there on holiday.
So, when they return home for the holidays like they have now, I enjoy every minute of it. I strangely enjoy doing more than one load of washing, I enjoy bitching at my brother for leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor or playing his tinny music too loud. I love having my sister here, even though we don’t party it up every night, just sitting in our pyjamas watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall with coffee, puts me in an element of complete happiness.
I enjoy the things I have learnt that I miss, when I actually took them for granted previously. This morning was the second morning my sister woke me up with a cafe latte, because she too misses being at home and using my mother’s orgasmic coffee machine.
I have two weeks left with them and we have no plans. We wake up every morning and go from there, which is both relaxing and exciting. My sister is coming with me this week to do my driver’s license, which I am so excited for. The support and encouragement I need.
Megan got to meet Daniel on skype yesterday, went well considering we were both trying to deal with Computicket on either side.
I’m lucky in the sense that we are extremely close, even if we have the odd screaming match over the house phone. Not a lot of people have the relationship with their siblings, like we do.
Although I miss them and home isn’t the same, they are only a skype session or a bbm message away. I am extremely proud, my parents are, of where the three of us are today. Although I’ve lost the leader quality, I will go the underground route of propaganda and dictatorship with the two of them, my influence will hopefully last their lifetimes ;)
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